259 days till the arrival of BE (8/27/00)
Let the Alpha Waves flow.
Due to my full-immersion medical experience at Mercy this month, I forgot to mention one big event that transpired last Friday. I now own a Zen Clock. See, back before this web page needed to be made, I asked Andrea to buy me a Zen clock. She replied, "When you put a ring on my finger." Though I bought her rings for every major occasion over the next 8 months, I got no clock. When it came time for the official ringing, I didn't ask, "Will you marry me?" I asked, "Will you buy me a Zen Clock?" Now, just 8-10 weeks later, plus shipping and handling, I have my clock for "a progressive awakening."

While I love the slow awakening I get from the slowly shortening interval of the chime ringing, I didn't realize that I was also programming my preconscious mind for a better life. In fact, here is my favorite excerpt from the Zen Clock Manual:

"When you are awakened by the Zen Alarm Clock's chime, lie quietly in bed before moving or opening your eyes and repeat your affirmation to yourself three times. The chances are good that your brain will be in a deep alpha state during the first few chimes of the clock. If you do nothing to disturb this "freshly awakened" state, your affirmations will be most effective and should achieve your desired results. Like dreamwork, improving you life through alpha wave techniques can be accomplished without the use of the Zen Alarm Clock. But using the clock makes the process easier and more fun."


260 days till the arrival of BE (8/26/00)
Monkey Treats
Well, we finally made it into the Jewish Times. You better read this before next weeks edition comes out, I'm not sure how long it will stay up.

So, besides our press coverage, this week has been slow on the wedding front for me. However, Andrea, the bride, and Lisa, co-chief of the women in waiting, have been calling on every bridal shoppe between Montreal and St. Augustine, FL. From their reports, I hear leopard print patterns will predominate our jungle theme wedding.

On the catering front, we are ruminating on the various meals we can serve our guests. Besides the standard chicken/fish/antelope entrees found at weddings these days, we are considering some more exotic primate treats. As usual, we are interested in any thoughts or suggestions you may have. (Chocolate ants anyone?)


267 days till the arrival of BE (8/19/00)
Adam Have Mercy (or is it Mercy has Adam?)
The last 13 days have been rather busy. While trying not to kill or permanently maim my patients at Mercy hospital, planning for BE, unlike a Russian submarine, has been moving on. First, the financiers have all agreed on the swing band. I will have to encourage all coming to BE that they brush up on their swing. (see 8/6 entry for details).

I got the chance to catch the tail end of a meeting with a potential florist. The highlight of this meeting was a very entertaining tale of revenge and adultery that all "came to a head" at the wedding. If you see me in person, I'll tell you the story (it is too tasteless for even this page).

Andrea has been deciding on things like colors, dresses for her women in waiting, bric-a-brac to give out to the guests, and what color the little carriage on top of the elephant that will carry us to the Belvedere will be. My favorite has been the intense negotiations regarding the pattern and shade of the nuptial-given flatware. One attribute I am looking for in good flatware is how much it hurts when it is lobbed at you from across, let's say, a kitchen.

So, the next update may be another twelve or 13 days away. My rotation at Mercy is scary (probably more so for the patients since I have so much responsibility and power) but also very educational and busy. And thus far there have only been two Adam performed rectal exams, always the bane of the medical student's existence.


280 days till the arrival of BE (8/6/00)
A Day in the Life
So we went to see a photographer yesterday morning. The best part about this photographer is that he will stick with you the entire day of the wedding. What I am hoping for is a "day in the life" style set of pictures. The photographer will camp out in our bedroom the night before and wake us up at 5 am on the day of the BE with flash photography. He will then bring waterproof equipment into the bathroom and record, for posterity's sake, our wedding day cleansing rituals. Then he will follow us to breakfast, dressing in our respective crushed velvet outfits, etc. All in all, every moment of the BE will be photographed and made into a large flip book in which you can see animated Andrea and Adam's wake up, get married, and then... all through the magic of flipping photos.

In other news, we have decided to take swing lessons so we don't look like people with spastic disorders on the day of the BE. In the meantime, check out the online swing dancing lessons.


282 days till the arrival of BE (8/4/00)
It's Alive!
Today, I decided the wedding has become an independent life form of its own. It eats money and time, puts out waste in the form of little chunks of frustration and will eventually reproduce into other future weddings. I'm not sure if it is motile, so it may be some lesser life form, like a bacterium. Either way, the wedding is now an independent entity and will hence forth will be called BE.

Tonight, we previewed Mood Swings, the 18 piece swing band. We were quite impressed with not only the sheer number of muscians, but how incredibly vervful they were. The only down-side is that Andrea and I now have to learn how to dance (which I guess we would have to do anyway). However, if I wear the outfit pictured below it should be no problem confusing me with a major star.


8/3/00
Bread and Circuses
A few events happened today. Foremost is my decision to now refer to our wedding as "The Blessed Event" (BE). Hereafter, all references will be to the BE and all time will be relative to it. For example, today, Aug. 3 2000 is 283 days till BE.
The great search for the entertainment and documenting services for our wedding is well under way. So far our choice of music is of the swing/jazz type. If we are lucky, the 18 piece zoot-suited band will be playing the tunes. As for photographers and videographers, we have run into two types which I term "the cliché" group and "the artíst" group. As you can imagine, "the artíst" are the purists who turn out great work but are WAY expensive. Conversely, "the cliché" group are cheap but turn out trite and banal videos and pictures (think baby photo montages and animated graphics over Whitney Houston music - barf.) Unfortunately, not much middle ground between the two groups.
The Way I see it, the media should be naturally interested in our high-powered wedding. I expect at least CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, the History Channel, and The Discovery Channel will want to document the BE.


8/2/00
T.G.F.K.A.
This evening, not only did I notice that the graph below (see 8/1/00) has the word disturbance spelled wrong, but I also had the opportunity to shop for tuxedos and associated accouterments at the local tux shoppe. While the purpose of my shopping was for another wedding, I previewed a number of potential styles that I like. Here is the current leading candidate outfit:

The Groom Formerly Known as "Adam"

8/1/00
"I Sense a Great Disturbance in the Force...It was like a Billion Voices Crying Out at Once."
Today we met with Rabbi Schwartz. I was struck by his appreciation of not only the traditions of Judaism, but of good computers (Macs and Palms) and the Grateful Dead. In fact, I'm finding it hard to think of anything witty to say about the encounter other than check out the Crazy Ketubah outlet!

It is not unusual (I have been told) to experience a certain, shall we say, disturbance in the force during the planning of a wedding. However, the recent negotiations have ceased, the Indonesians have gone home (see 7/30/00 update) and all the sanctions have been lifted. Here is a graph of the recent disturbance in the force: